


a pale rose blooming

by spoke



Category: Forever Knight
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-17
Updated: 2019-12-17
Packaged: 2021-02-26 06:33:25
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,546
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21829012
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/spoke/pseuds/spoke
Summary: Many thanks to my beta, karanguni, without which this fic would not make as much sense as it does. I hope it brings you some Yuletide cheer, requester!
Relationships: Fleur de Brabant/Lucien LaCroix
Comments: 6
Kudos: 16
Collections: Yuletide 2019





	a pale rose blooming

**Author's Note:**

  * For [thatwhichyousee](https://archiveofourown.org/users/thatwhichyousee/gifts).



> Many thanks to my beta, karanguni, without which this fic would not make as much sense as it does. I hope it brings you some Yuletide cheer, requester!

It had been one of her oldest memories, gazing up at the stars. They were always there, constant when so little in her life had stayed the same after their father’s death. She tried to imagine what they were made of, longed to know what could be so everlasting that generations had been able to see and name them, trace patterns in the sky from one lifetime to the next.

Now she sees the stars through a fog of anger and longing, though she has no idea why. What could possibly have changed so much within her, when the only recent change had been the return of Nicola? It had been pure joy, to know her brother lived! To have him home, and see how relieved their mother had been. 

But then he said he had to return to the Crusades...

She frowned, and shoved herself off the bench she had been sitting on with a low hiss of frustration. Leaving for the Crusades, leaving mother and her alone again with no male heirs for the family! Which meant she would have to be married, and her prospects there felt even more dismal than they had before she had met... Before...

Her mother’s voice came from the doorway, distracting Fleur from the faint thread of memory that had begun to unwind.... “Fleur? Come inside, love, it’s time for dinner.”

She sounded so tired still, as she had since Nicola left, that Fleur could not find it in herself to insist on staying outside. “Yes, Maman. I will be there in a moment.”

Even so, as she turned to retrieve her book, she found herself taking just a bit longer than that moment when the roses caught her eyes. They had been buds, before. That much she felt certain of.

* * *

She finds herself immersed in reading in ways she had not been, before, and all of it of another world. Mother would be worried for her health, or possibly her soul, if she knew. Fortunately Fleur has no intention of letting her know, hiding her choice of reading material in her room. They have precious little of what she wants to know, however, and asking the clergy on Sundays would be more dangerous than her mother knowing.

She doesn’t even know what she’s looking for, exactly, except that something has been taken from her and she wants it back, possibly more than she has wanted anything in her life. It’s as if their home is crawling with ghosts to her, now, ghosts of Nicola and his friends. The lady Janette, and the gentleman Fleur is sure was there, but cannot seem to remember.

Nor can their mother, who looked at her quite strangely when she asked. She seems to think her son came home only with the lady Janette, and that it was his intention to escort the lady home before he returned to the fighting. An engagement visit of some sort, seems to be their mother’s impression, although why the lady did not have the proper escorts, or baggage for that matter, she cannot say. Or has perhaps been made not to care?

What little she has been able to learn, gleaned from texts of a rather suspect nature and servants’ gossip, suggests something more sinister than the story mother is intent on telling herself. 

Fleur feels more inclined to believe the servants’ gossip. The texts would have her believe that, were her suspicions correct, they would have stayed to slowly drain the life out of everyone instead of moving on. She would never have believed such of Nicola before, but with every fragment of memory she’s been able to grasp it becomes more apparent that he was hiding something, and the servants...

None of the three, and the servants do remember there being three of them, would ever go out in the day. No one was allowed in their rooms, and extra curtains had been secured for the windows, that not a trace of the sun make it inside. They seemed to eat, and yet the food was always still on their plates when the meal was cleared away. People had gone missing in nearby villages, such as might not attract too much attention except among those they loved.

Vampires, someone whispers, and Fleur can almost hear a voice talking to her about the stars.

* * *

What Fleur remembers the Lady Janette saying, with a clarity that only adds to her resolve, is “We are going to the Crusades.”

It had been so sharp, so clear as to cut through the fog of what Fleur had been assuming was grief at her bother leaving. _We_ are going to the Crusades, with a touch on her arm as if to say that Fleur was part of that we. A tug, while Nicola had not been looking, a stolen moment just for the two of them that had sparked something like hope within her. And the lady had looked at her, and smiled, as if they’d had an entire conversation in that moment, and whispered, “Until we meet again, ma cherie.”

She had gone to join them, Nicola and his friend. That man was Nicola’s friend, and her.. _hers_. Whoever he was, whatever had happened, it was _hers_ and Nicola had taken it from her, and she was not going to live with it. She _refused_.

Which was how she ended up disguising herself as best she could as a man, and thankful that she had never filled out in the way their mother had always hoped. It would have made the entire proceeding excessively annoying. It was bad enough that Nicola’s clothes were a terrible fit, even though she’d gotten his older things from before he’d left. Still, she managed it well enough to leave their home, and then their village, and set off in what she’d been told was the right direction.

* * *

She had not expected to catch up with them so quickly, nor the shock that she’d feel when she did.

But then, she had imagined finding them camping somewhere, or maybe hiding in an inn. She had not expected to be walking her poor overworked horse down a street and seeing Lucien killing someone. He was in an alley, and she.. the woman...

It was one thing to imagine what they’d been doing to survive, and another thing entirely to see her Lucien with blood on his mouth, letting a woman’s body fall to the ground as if it were nothing. Seeing him, it was as if a chest were opened in her mind, and the memories inside shone out with the comfort the stars had been missing. Their walks in the gardens, glances exchanged over meals, sharing opinions on the books in the library. Love was what she had forgotten, it had been missing from her life because he left! 

Because her brother convinced him to leave without her. For a moment, she wasn’t sure who to be more furious with, but then her eyes were drawn to Lucien again as he turned from the woman’s body. 

He stepped back, looking up to the stars with such pain and longing that some small choked sound escaped Fleur.

Lucien turned, and the flood of expression on his face was _glorious_ , even through the haze of her shock. She hardly noticed herself sinking to the ground for drinking it in, the surprise and fear that melted into such lust, such pleasure as she’d only begun letting herself imagine after they’d met.

He was before her in an instant, the sound of his voice barely audible over the rushing of her blood in her ears. “Fleur. My Fleur, my precious, clever flower. How are you here?”

As she struggled to respond, she found herself wondering if he could sense that, or if it was only the drumbeat of her heart that was clear to him. “I... There was a hole in my life, Lucien. You left me, and I didn’t know that you’d gone.” She reached up, hands tangling in his clothes. “I couldn’t remember! I didn’t even know that you’d been there, but I knew something was missing and it was driving me mad, and then...”

He looked stricken, her Lucien, but also like a man plotting revenge, and she was certain it was against Nicola. Well, she would have words of her own for her brother, but right now she couldn’t have stopped speaking if she’d wanted. “Then I remembered her, Lady Janette, saying we were going to the Crusades. Not as if it were just her and Nicola, but a we that meant me as well. So I followed you, even though I wasn’t entirely sure why, except that Nicola had taken something from me and I wanted it _back_.”

He hissed in mingled pleasure and rage, her Lucien, and she felt she might never have heard such a beautiful sound. “Janette. My dear Janette has truly outdone herself this time. But Nicolas... Nicolas is a problem best left for another night, my love. When matters have been settled beyond his interference. Come.”

And the last thing she remembered of that village, or that night, was being lifted into Lucien’s arms, and coming closer to the stars than she had ever dreamed possible.


End file.
